Orb
by HDUC
Summary: The Doctor and Martha have accidentally thrown the elements out-of-whack on a planet that requires literal balance, in order to thrive. They are enlisted to help restore the equilibrium, providing a cathartic resolution as only they can. Adult!
1. Chapter 1

**Hi all! I have to say, I feel that the springtime is quite an à propos time of year for this story...**

 **I have written stories before about the sex act as a ceremonial thing, but my inspiration for this story came from somewhere a bit unexpected. It was the book, "The Footprints of God," by Greg Iles. (Coincidentally, the hero of the novel is named Dr. David Tennant.) I suggest you pick it up someday, if you ever get the chance; the storytelling style is as compelling as "The DaVinci Code," only it's well-written. If nothing else, the resolution to the book's main conflict is a gorgeous one, and it spoke to me on quite a deep level.**

 **Anyway, the novel gave me a jumping-off point for this story... but that's it. Other than one main theme, I don't think I've taken anything from it. I say this partly because my goal here is always the same: the smut. But don't get me wrong! This story is very different from the other one I've been working on, "Used." This one has atmosphere and (hopefully) some depth of thought from our two favorite characters, as far as their relationship goes...**

 **So, I hope you find it enjoyable, and I hope you find some emotional truth in it! And of course... have fun!**

* * *

 **PART 1**

Alarms were blaring, the Cloister Bell was ringing, and a chaos of green could be seen, zipping along outside of the TARDIS' windows. The console room was filling with smoke, lights were flashing, crash seemed imminent.

And _tempers_ inside the box were flaring as adrenaline ran high.

The vessel was flying sideways through a forest, which, for some reason, had become independent of the natural laws. Vines were now growing at an exponential rate, licking at the blue police box's wooden exterior, driving the Doctor and his Companion into panic.

"What the hell is happening, Doctor?" Martha Jones screamed out, gripping the console for dear life. "I thought you said we were a thousand feet above the surface of the planet!"

The Doctor, gripping similarly, pulled the computer screen to a more convenient viewing position, and insisted, "We are!"

"So how are we getting eaten by plants?"

"Martha, not now."

"Well, can't we dematerialise?"

"Not as long as we're moving this fast," he insisted.

"Then slow down!"

"Well, thanks for that… it never would have occurred to me!"

"Oh, sod off!" she hissed, gripping the Aspura Control bar tightly, with one arm flung over it.

"We can't slow down, Martha, because the vines will crush the exterior, and the TARDIS' interior will bleed all over the place, and trust me, you don't want that happening!"

In addition, the TARDIS could not teleport out of an environment with the readings this world was suddenly giving off. An hour ago, the ecosystems of this planet were in fine balance. Forests grew, deserts were desolate, the air was breathable to human and Time Lord alike. They had arrived the day before, in order to help Shaman Ablengo invoke the eight natural forces, in order to boost their agricultural turnout, which had fallen to desperate levels.

Actually, neither the Doctor nor Martha were the type to do any sort of fire dances to praise the spirits (or whatever), so they did something that _they_ knew how to do: fixed things with science. The Doctor had come up with a powerful fertilizer for dusting the fields, and that's what they had been doing when all hell broke loose.

Suddenly, the jungles seemed to come alive and crawl out of their own skin, as it were, and began to target anything in the area that moved. Animals were crushed, and the TARDIS had to run, and run fast.

Over the next few minutes, the Doctor navigated at breakneck speeds, dodging flytraps, what looked like giant rhododendrons, and ivy. At last, he was able to pull up, and the TARDIS leapt out of reach of the tendrils below. From there, he took Martha's advice, and teleported safely away.

"Damn it," Martha spat, letting go of the console. She paced around it once, and then asked, "We did this, didn't we?"

"I'd say that, if we had made a super-powerful fertilizer and sprayed it all over the place, and then the vegetation of this planet just _happened_ to pick today to become colossal and murderous, then it would be a remarkable coincidence," he told her, his tone hard and sardonic.

"Oi," she scolded. "No need to get snippy. A simple _yes_ would suffice."

"Sorry, I don't have time to hedge my tone, love, I'm a bit busy trying to work out whether this planet is going to get bloody squeezed to death by its own vegetation!"

"And yet, you have time for impassioned, sarcastic responses."

He took his hands off the controls momentarily, and took two angry steps toward her. "All right, then, would you like something straightforward, and to the point, Martha? Eh?"

Just then, another notification sounded on the console, and it seemed to be some sort of communiqué, because the Doctor answered it as though he might do a telephone.

Which suited her fine. To have this type of interaction with him… well, it put her all over the map. On the one hand, she rarely liked doing anything to displease him, and the idea that he had anything venomous on his tongue intended for her, made her feel cold all over, and a bit nauseated, no matter how "right" she was about anything. On the other hand, when fury flies, there is passion and heat. Going nose-to-nose with him, however briefly, could put her right on the edge of desire, even if fear and/or rage boiled just beneath the surface.

She mentally slapped herself into focusing on the subject at-hand.

Which was, as it happened, the Doctor on the comm, listening with a mixture of regret, surprise, and annoyance, but not saying much.

After a few beats, he said, "All right, Shaman, I understand. We will see you in a few minutes."

"Uh-oh," Martha said, as the Doctor cut off the communication.

"Yep," he said. "We're being called to the Temple Server."

"The Temple Server?"

"Yeah. Temple, implying religion. Server, implying computer," he said. "This is both."

"Thanks… kind of beautiful, in a weird way."

"I don't know how it works, exactly… it runs the planet somehow. I suppose I'm about to learn, aren't I? It's sitting on one of the adjacent moons. Shaman Ablengo will be there."

"Great. For what?" she asked, though she already knew the answer, and risked another sarcastic lash-out from the Doctor.

"I expect, to give us a good bollocking," he sighed. "Ready?"

"Are you kidding?"

"Here we go," he sighed.

* * *

In the middle of the room, there was an orb. It was, Martha estimated, about three stories high, and just as wide. It glimmered like onyx. Dark blue and contrasting silverish tints oscillated within, like oil in water, and it shone with light from the inside, and seemed to give a hum.

"Whoa," Martha said, with a big, awe-filled sigh.

"I know," the Doctor responded, with a bit of the same tone.

She laughed. "It's not often I get to hear you, in the throes of wonderment."

"It's not often something throws me into the throes of wonderment."

She laughed again, absently, at the pun.

"Is this the Temple Server?" she asked, still staring at the sphere.

"Yeah," the Doctor responded, also still staring.

"This thing runs the planet?"

"Yeah," he repeated, except now, his tone seemed more present… and deflated. "Listen, Martha…"

The sudden seriousness grabbed her notice, and her head swiveled in his direction, almost involuntarily.

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry for the way I spoke to you. Before, in the TARDIS."

"It's all right. I wasn't exactly hedging my words either."

"I should know not to get wound up like that, when the pressure is on."

She had an involuntary sense-memory of him, just about to get right in her face, only a few minutes before. And, her body responded with the same somewhat shameful, adrenaline-inducing, rush of desire she'd felt in those moments. Heat flaring, ardor building…

"No, you shouldn't," she said, gulping. "Heat of the moment is heat of the moment. You're human. Or, near enough…"

"Doctor, Miss Jones," a voice said. "Good of you to come."

Looking to their right, they saw Shaman Ablengo approaching with a cadre of officers.

"Least we could do," the Doctor said, sheepishly, and Martha could see that he was _forcing_ himself to make eye-contact.

"I should say so," said the Shaman. "After what you've done."

"It was an accident, Shaman," Martha insisted. "We didn't know that…"

"We are well aware it was an accident, Miss Jones," one of the officers said. "Nevertheless, the wrong needs to be righted."

"How do you propose?" the Doctor asked.

"Ordinarily, should outsiders come in to 'help,' and so royally foul things up, we would bid the outsiders leave us, and we would attempt to solve the problem in our own way," said Ablengo. "But we are now dealing with an imbalance of the forces."

"I see," said the Doctor.

"Some of those imbalances we may remedy ourselves, but as you know, there are certain qualities that our people lack, that are needed to restore order here."

"I see," repeated the Doctor, stealing a glance at Martha.

"Doctor, Miss Jones," an officer said, stepping forward, offering them two pieces of white cloth. "We'll need you to don these garments."

The Doctor and Martha each took hold of one white cloth, and held them up. They turned out to be the bright white tunics that the Shaman, and all of the officers, wore.

"Okay," said the Doctor. "What for?"

"For the ceremonial interface."

"Okay. Right. Thanks. Is there somewhere we can go, and change?" he asked.

"Right this way," said the officer.

They followed the officer down a set of stairs, that seem to take them beneath the orb. The first set of doors led into a small room, with a primitive folding partition down the middle.

"You may change in here," the officer told them. "No garments of your own should be left on your person. You may store them here – they will be returned to you as you leave. When you have changed into the tunic, go through that door there. I will meet you, and we will proceed."

"Thanks," said the Doctor, and the officer left.

"What the hell is going on?" Martha asked, as soon as the door was shut.

"You heard the officer. Change into the tunic, don't leave on any underwear."

She chuckled. "Yeah, that part I got. But what's this _ceremonial interface?_ I mean, I get that we threw the planet out-of-whack somehow, and we're being asked to fix it, but…"

"Again, ceremony, implying spirituality. Interface, implying computer…ishness. This will be a bit of both."

"Okay. That doesn't help me," she said, going to one side of the partition, and pulling her shirt off over her head. She folded it nicely and placed it on the floor.

"I don't know much, Martha," he said, unbuttoning his own dress shirt.

"But what do they mean, when they say that they can restore some types of balance themselves, but there are qualities that they lack? Is that where we come in?"

"Yeah," he told her, continuing to pull at his own clothes, remove and fold them. "Their eight forces are four sets of contradictions: death/rebirth, hunger/famine, sacred/profane, and masculine/feminine."

"Oh, I get it."

Upon arrival a few days before, Martha had noticed that Shaman Ablengo, the officers, and indeed, everyone they met, seemed to be androgynous. At least to her way of seeing the universe. They all had voices that varied from high to deep, from supple to gravelly. They had facial structures that varied widely – high cheek bones, long eyelashes, prominent brow-ridges, square jaws, thick necks, Adam's apples. They had body-types that varied from v-shaped to curvaceous, from short to tall – just like humans. But for Martha, none of it jibed. What she perceived as "typical" gender traits did not seem to go together, in any one individual.

Shaman Ablengo, for example, looked like a tall black man when dressed in the white tunic, but the accompanying voice was soft, and reminded Martha of her mother. And when the shaman had changed out of the tunic on their first night, the proper fitted "shirt" and "trousers" designated for the evening meal appeared to reveal the curve of breasts, but narrow, vertical hips.

The Doctor had explained that the planet did not have gender identity, nor any biological gender at all. All reproduction was done cerebrally, with incubation occurring in laboratories, and the experience of it was not bodily nor visceral in the least.

"So," Martha continued. "They can manage death and rebirth, they can manage hunger, famine, sacred, and profane, but they can't manage masculine nor feminine."

"Right. So they need us."

"Why does their planet require masculine and feminine forces for balance, when their primary species cannot provide it?" she asked, pulling the tunic over her head, and zipping it up. From there, she kicked off her shoes, unbuttoned her jeans, and removed all of her clothing from the waist down.

"Dunno," he answered, also now removing shoes, trousers and everything underneath. "Evolution, maybe. Or maybe it's an aspect of the sacred/profane thing… this terrible irony of the unattainable, something profane that's needed in order to feed the sacred."

"Wow. That's a bit rough."

"Well, I could be wrong."

"Okay. So what do we do?"

"It'll probably be some sort of meditative exercise," he said. "They'll… I don't know, extract energies from us as masculine and feminine beings, and it will all become a part of the orb."

"The orb."

"Yep."

"Do I really want my consciousness floating around in an orb?"

"It's totally abstract, Martha. After a while, it ceases to be anything to do with you, and just becomes part of… the collective, for lack of a better word. Besides, I don't know that we have a choice. Are you ready?"

"Yeah," she sighed.

When they stepped the through the door, they found themselves in a square room, panelled on all surfaces with chrome. About twenty officers in white tunics were standing about, most of them staring at the newcomers. The orb sat on a pedestal in the centre, and there seemed to be a "bridge" of sorts that spanned across, from one end of the room to the other, via the pedestal. About seven steps on each side led up to the bridge. The middle of the bridge was unseen, and Martha and the Doctor both wondered independently if it led _into_ the orb.

The orb loomed over them, large and imposing – they were now almost underneath it. It hummed, glowed, and churned away. There was definitely something mechanical about it, and also something organic. It was, as the Doctor said, part computer, part spirit (perhaps a bit like the TARDIS). The thing commanded their attention so much that they did not notice the officers on either side of them. Each of them found themselves guided in a different direction; Martha to the right, the Doctor to the left.

Instinctively, they reached out for one another's hand, but were only able to touch for a second or two.

"See you on the other side," he said. "Don't worry."

She nodded, gulped hard, then went where she was being led.

The officer took her to the foot of the stairs, and said, with a voice that was deep and soothing, "I am Undershaman Protha, I will be guiding you through this process.

"Okay, she said. Then, "Erm, nice to meet you."

Protha smiled indulgently, then walked up the steps, turning around at the top to face Martha. "Come," the Undershaman said.

She walked up the stairs, and when she reached the sixth step, Protha took her hands. As she took the last step and walked forward, she felt something probing at her mind. It felt, somehow, soft, comfortable, inviting, yet totally cerebral. She let it in without hesitation, then almost immediately had second thoughts… but then, she could not shake it off.

"Don't be alarmed," said Protha. "The Temple Server is inside your mind now. It is tapping into your energies, in anticipation of the rebalancing process. It will not hurt you."

This was mildly reassuring to Martha, though her qualms were already slipping away. She'd gone into a kind of trance, though she was, weirdly, still aware of her surroundings.

"Wow, that's… that's powerful," Martha mused, feeling a little drunk.

Protha led her forward, toward the orb. Now, she was in the crook of space between the great sphere and the bridge, where if she stretched straight up high enough, she could touch it. Although, at some point, they had stepped into a fog, of sorts, which meant that Martha could see neither what was behind her, nor in front of her. Everything simply glowed white. There were no walls, no doors, no matter, and yet she felt isolated.

"Please sit," said Protha, indicating a shell-like chair, in front of her. "And we'd prefer that you sit… I believe humans call it 'lotus-style,' if you please."

She did as Protha had asked, settling herself onto the pad, and crossing her legs accordingly.

Protha seemed to sit down somewhere nearby, and after that, for several minutes, it seemed, everything was still. Martha did not have to be asked not to speak – she simply _knew_ not to. And she did not wish to. Her breathing became regulated, her thoughts became simple, silence reigned, except for the soft buzz of the mighty orb above. She wondered what was next.

"Shaman Ablengo," said Protha's voice from nearby. "I don't think it's working."

* * *

On the other side of the orb, the Doctor went through very much the same process, with Undershaman Conshi. Up the stairs, led forward, sitting in a shell-shaped chair, attempting to meditate…

Except, the moment when the Doctor hit the top of the steps, he knew that simple meditation was not going to be enough.

When a voice came through the incidental comms, saying it didn't think the process was working, he spoke, ethereally. "That's because there's already the presence of my TARDIS in my mind. And in Martha's. Although, with her, it was easier for the Temple Server to overwhelm it. In my case, it's battling eight centuries' worth of communion in my brain."

He heard Conshi's voice say, "The Doctor is saying, he's got some interference from his TARDIS."

After a beat, Shaman Ablengo's voice came through. "Go to phase two."

"Doctor, do you feel _some_ presence of the Temple Server in your consciousness?"

"Oh, yes," he said. "But it can't push out everything that's already there."

Another few minutes went by, and then Conshi said, "Okay, then. Doctor, tell me about your life."

"I'm a traveller…" the Time Lord reported, rather absently.

"No, Doctor. Your life as a man."

"Life as a man?"

"Yes," he said. "There are two genders amongst humanoids who indeed have gender. What's it like to know only one side of that particular coin?"

"It can be limiting. Especially since Time Lords are capable of…"

"But what's good about it?"

It took the Doctor a few moments, then, "There's a kind of assuredness to it. A certainty. There are certain markers that let me, and others, know that I'm a man. At least, at present."

"What are those markers?"

Another few moments. Then, he answered, "I have a deeper voice than I would, were I a woman. I'm tall, a bit more solid, more broad than most women. My body is straight, rather than curvy. I'm harder about the chest…"

"Good. And how should you act and dress?"

"I act, assured of being, basically, one thing and not the other."

"That you are male."

"Yes."

"Males are protectors."

"Well, _I'm_ a protector, but that's me. My personality. My lot in life. It's not about my gender."

"I see."

"I'm plenty vulnerable as well. And I've known numerous women who are protectors, just as much as I am. Martha included."

"Do you act, knowing that you _can_ protect?"

"In certain arenas, perhaps. But again, that's my personality. I'm a protector, and a risk-taker."

"You swagger like a male."

"I do, I suppose," the Doctor sighed. "It's all wrapped up in regeneration… this life, this time, this face…"

"Tell me about this face."

"It is… shall we say, well-liked? I've never had one similar… probably never will again."

"Does this face give you power?"

"In a way."

"A power that is different from that which you have experienced in the past?"

"Yes," he admitted, rather reluctantly.

"As a man?"

"I suppose so, but it's all quite superficial."

"As a sexual being?"

"Perhaps. Probably. But I have no way of knowing for sure."

"Humanoid males feel a formidable imperative to engage in reproductive practises, yes?"

"A high sex drive, you mean? Sure, in a manner of speaking."

"Tell me about that."

"It's meant to be empowering, and it is. But it can be exhausting."

"How so?"

"Keeping desires at bay, keeping one's body in check. Knowing what I want, knowing I could have it, feeling entitled, like I _should_ have it, and knowing… this is wrong."

"How is it wrong?"

The Doctor sighed. "I'm a man of action and initiative. The universe stays intact, often, because I don't mince words. I don't hedge my intentions. I do what needs to be done, I take what I need, to save the day."

"And?"

"These are qualities that, in tandem with being aware of my sexuality, and my desires, could be harmful."

"Is this part of being a man?"

"Definitely. Though, I suppose it could just be part of _having a gender._ "

"Do you feel sexually weak?"

"No."

"So, you feel sexually powerful."

"No."

"Are you frightened of your own sexuality, Doctor?"

After a long pause, the Doctor replied, "No. But I'm somewhat wary of it. Especially lately."

Conshi sighed with exasperation, looked the Doctor with a measure of disdain. The Undershaman wondered why it was so hard for a man to say he was a man, what it was to be a man, what it was to act like one, to have power over the fairer gender, to rule most parts of the known universe…

From Conshi's point of view, being a man, and not any other gender, must be incredibly simple. What unfortunate luck, getting a Time Lord, a being bound to overthink everything.

* * *

Martha was several minutes into talking about the uncertainty, the dichotomy, the fettered quality of life as a woman, added to which, was the complicated layer of being a woman of colour. She found it hard to explain… she did not feel weak _because_ of being a woman, at least not as a rule, unless she was walking down a dark alley at night, "Which I would never do, because it's daft. Who does that, anyway?"

She just felt weak sometimes… and also strong, sometimes. From the questions she was being asked, it seemed to her that the Undershaman Protha was looking for a black-and-white that simply did not exist.

Soon, a voice came over the comm. "I don't think this is working either. The Doctor is too… conflicted."

Protha reported, "As is Miss Jones."

"Perhaps they are not the right pair for this exercise."

Ablengo's voice boomed, "They are the only pair we have!"

"I'm sorry Shaman," Protha said. "If his masculinity is not distilled enough to manifest, and her femininity is not distilled enough to manifest, then the orb won't recognise the forces, and…"

Shaman Ablengo's voice, rather irritated, interruped, "I know what will happen! Let's try level three. Perhaps they will distill if we have them go inverse."

"Inverse?" asked the voice of Undershaman Conshi, on the other side of the orb.

"If they cannot define pure masculinity or femininity in themselves, can they do so in each other?"

* * *

"Doctor, tell me about Miss Jones," said Conshi.

"What about her?"

"Is she…" Conshi seemed to contemplate the right words. "… _attractive_ to you, as a woman?"

"Of course."

"Why do you say _of course?_ "

"Well, she's beautiful," the Doctor responded easily. "I mean, properly beautiful. Mind you, I've been around pretty women in my life, but…"

"But?"

"Martha's a whole different thing."

"So, she's beautiful," Conshi echoed. "And feminine."

"Yes," the Doctor agreed.

"Is it her femininity that makes her attractive to you?"

"Partly," the Doctor said, still in a trance, but with a shrug. "In this regeneration, those of the feminine persuasion are definitely more attractive to me than those of the masculine."

"Good. Tell me more. What is attractive about Miss Jones?"

"What isn't?" the Doctor asked, with an absent chuckle. "Perfectly-formed lips, and a smile that lights up a galaxy. Wide eyes that practically spark with intelligence and wonder. And when you combine the two, it's like… a supernova."

"A supernova in the cosmos, or inside you."

The Doctor seemed to think about this. "Both," he said. "It hits me right where I live, right in the gut."

"Why so?"

Again, the Doctor thought about his words. "Maybe it's her innocence… places she's never been, things she's never seen nor done, and I have something she wants. Although, perhaps it's a certain… well, _lack_ of innocence, that hides behind that amazing, inquisitive face."

Conshi gave the Doctor space to continue, but he did not. So, Conshi prompted him. "What do you mean, _a lack of innocence, that hides?_ "

"When she looks at me, smiles at me, fires both barrels at me, as it were, there is always the tantalising question of what's _behind_ those fireworks in her eyes. Is it curiosity? Or is it more of a hunger? A voracity for… knowledge? Power? Experience?"

"Let's talk about voracity for experience," said Conshi, sensing a direction in which he could lead the Doctor. "Do you desire to give her those experiences?"

"I do," the Doctor answered.

"What if those experiences are… shall we say, not necessarily accessible via your TARDIS? What if they are something that _you_ could give her, without any knowledge of time, space, or travel?"

The Doctor was quiet, contemplative.

So Conshi probed further. "Do you understand what I'm asking?"

"Yes. Do you?"

For the first time since this began, the Undershaman smiled. "Not from experience, as I am a spiritual being, and my species lacks gender. But I know that the reproductive act, as we discussed a little while ago, is a major imperative in the lives of some humanoids. Not just for reproduction, either."

"That's right."

"It is a recreational imperative. A psychological one, as well, yes?"

"Yes."

"To Time Lords… and especially to humans. Have you ever thought about this act, as it pertains to Miss Jones?"

"Yes," answered the Doctor, dreamily.

"Why?"

"Because I'm a man, she's an extraordinarily beautiful and complex woman, and I'm not made of stone."

"All right. Give in to the side of you that is, as you say, _not made of stone_. If you think of having pyshical _experiences_ with Miss Jones, how does it shape in your mind? What is in your mind's eye?"

The Doctor was silent for a long while, and Conshi just let him be.

"I can't," he eventually said.

"Yes, you can," Conshi told him. "I know that your imagination holds images of Miss Jones in all of her feminine glory – you've just told me as much. Immerse yourself in your imagination, Doctor. Let yourself be with her. What do you see?"

"It's too much. Too private."

"No-one will ever know what you have said here, except for me," Conshi said earnestly, and truthfully. "Least of all, Miss Jones."

"You asked me earlier if I'm afraid of my sexuality," the Doctor argued.

"You said you are not."

"I said I was _wary_ of it…"

"So, be wary. _Control_ is still yours. I'm not asking you to throw caution to the wind, I'm just asking you to _talk._ Just talk about what you see, inside of your mind, when you are imagining the _experience_ of Miss Jones."

"Be wary, and also disclose?"

The Undershaman sighed. "Just breathe, Doctor. Go deeper. Explore."

Another pause, then, "Warmth. Curves."

"Beg pardon?"

"Martha. Warmth. Curves."

"Wonderful," said Conshi. "Keep going."

"Golden brown, glimmering skin, stretched taut over miles and miles of perfect curves," the Doctor said, sounding as though he were light years away. "Like a landscape of flowing caramel… rising and falling with her breath."

"Soft? Rigid?" asked Conshi, liking this portion of the Doctor's narrative.

"Variations," said the Doctor. His voice fell to a whisper. "Soft breasts. Firmer bottom. And moving upwards, her back curves like a large bow, culminating in bony scapulae and skull. All of it, though, is oscillating, pulsing, flexible, and still yielding."

"Tell me about yielding, Doctor."

After another long pause, he said "The outward bow of her back becomes her bottom, and this becomes her thighs. They are strong – they run and they pump and they are practically tireless. Except… sometimes they quiver. And they yield."

"Good."

"They separate, and this makes an inverted V-shape," he said, still whispering. "And there is a proper V-shape just above. And her body becomes like an X, and at the cross, the midpoint…"

The Doctor had trailed off, and his breathing had grown ragged. "This is where you want to be," Undershaman Conshi said, finishing his thought.

"Yes," the Doctor whispered, harshly, desperately. "This is the most yielding of all. It is warm, and supple, and slick. And her voice is high, when it says my name. Higher, even, than usual, and sharp and full and desperate, as though it's spilling over. Everything about her, in fact, is distended and poignant. Her landscape has changed, her textures have changed, and it all continues to shift… the curves change quality. No, they change shape and composition. The bow-shape becomes a proper arch, while she stretches and channels sensation throughout. Her voice climbs even higher… it becomes louder, and even sharper and tighter. Though she's no longer saying my name, nor any words – just sounds. And now, it's not just her voice, not just her back and her breasts… _nothing_ in the shape of her is holding true. Not even the X. It falls apart. It melts into a puddle, and flies into a million shards at the same time. And this… this is what she's been looking for. It's what I've been looking for."

"All of this is fantastic, Doctor," Conshi said, with some resignation and exhaustion in his voice.

"I hope so," the Doctor said. "Because it's really bloody painful."

* * *

 **Not exactly a mystery as to where this is going, is it? But remember, the enjoyment is in the journey!**

 **Annnnd please leave a review! XOXO**


	2. Chapter 2

**Ooh! Long absence - sorry about that, friends.**

 **When we left off, the shamans were a bit vexed, because the Doctor and Martha, under the mind-probing influence of the Temple Server, weren't distilled enough in their respective masculinity and femininity to recombine, and bring balance. But could they effectively evoke _each other's_ gender traits? Let's find out.**

 **The Doctor has already spoken about Martha, his thoughts of her, how he sees her, and ultimately revealed that he has a few impure thoughts about her as well...**

 **But what about her? Heh... enjoy!**

 **Oh, and, this chapter is most definitely NSFW. ;-)**

* * *

 **PART 2**

"Miss Jones, tell me about the Doctor," said Undershaman Protha. Since Martha Jones and the Doctor were not sufficiently able to delineate their own gender in a clear manner, Protha and the other Shamans and Undershamans were hoping that perhaps they could do so in one another.

"What about him?" asked Martha, still entranced.

"Is he attractive, in your eyes?"

She sighed in a way that would have made her cringe with embarrassment, if she had been fully aware, then said, "Oh, yes."

"Why such an emphatic, _oh yes_? Why not just a simple _yes?_ "

"I can't explain it."

"He's handsome?"

"Yes, but… that's only part of it."

"What's the rest of it?"

"He's… impish."

"And that makes him beautiful to you? His impishness?"

"Yes," she said. "It's all over his face. It makes his features somewhat smouldering. Like, there's always a naughty eyebrow-tilt, or a secret smirk, just dying to leak out. There's a fire in him, and he keeps it at bay, but the flames lick at his face sometimes and it can make my stomach flutter."

There was a long moment while Martha paused, and Protha let her. Her breathing was steady, and her trance was fairly complete…

"You mentioned his face. Tell me about his face," Protha urged.

"He has a razor-sharp face," she said.

"A masculine one?"

"It is, in some ways, quite pretty," she sang. "Large, expressive eyes, thin nose, sensual mouth… yet there is a severity about it. A primal quality that… I don't know. I feel those qualities reverberating throughout my body, whenever he looks at me."

"The severity? The qualities that are primal?"

"Yes. The severity in him, and in his face, can be intoxicating. It can make me ache."

"Ache?"

"Yes…" she trailed off. "This is very personal."

"Personal is what we're after. Don't be scared, Miss Jones, no-one will hear you."

She hesitated for a long while, long enough that Protha prompted her again to speak about the ache she feels, over the Doctor's sometimes "severe" facial features. Though Martha herself had never used the word _masculine,_ Protha was hoping that this was where she was headed, either consciously or unconsciously.

"Why do you ache, Miss Jones?"

Martha's breath quickened and her voice was reduced to almost a hiss. "He has dark eyes like an eagle – they see everything. They dig, they go deep. But his eyebrows tell you everything you need to know. They wear his anger and pain, his whimsy and happiness. He doesn't seem to know it, either, so his face is very, very readable via the eyebrows. No matter what he says with his mouth… But see, the eyebrows are angular and efficient. As is his hair. And the sideburns that frame his face. The shape of his face is rather angular as well. It's a smart package. Finely-wrought and everything about it is penetrating."

"Penetrating."

"Yes," she sighed, with resignation. "And this is why I ache. Because I want more. His severity, his baseness, if you will… his power, passion, rage, joy… it all makes me _want more._ Want. With my whole body."

"Talk about the body," Protha encouraged, not sure where she would go next.

"Mine or his?"

"His."

After a long pause, she said, "The space he occupies is vast."

"Do you mean, the space he occupies in the universe?"

"That too," she told Protha. "He's known throughout the galaxies, as a saviour, as a legend… sometimes as the scourge of their existence. If you had a visual representation of the scope and reach of the Doctor, it would be, as I said, _vast."_

"Indeed," Protha agreed.

"Fast-moving lines going _zoom, zoom!_ all over the universe, until all of existence looks like a big ball of twine that one cannot untangle. And I find that amazing. Stunning. And every day, I am learning more about what he can do, what he knows, and what he inspires," she continued.

This was all a bit too cerebral for Protha's purposes, so he asked, "Let's talk again about the physical space he occupies."

"There's a lot of it."

"Yes, we've established…"

"I mean, his person. His body."

"All right."

"The way he moves, the way he carries himself… there's a swagger."

"Is this characteristic of the Doctor himself?"

"A lot of men behave this way," she said. "But only a select few can pull it off with any sort of grace. The Doctor is one of them."

"Keep going."

"He wears this long, heavy coat that swishes when he walks slowly, and billows heroically when he walks with purpose. It fans out like wings, and no-one can come near him. The coat itself is a statement of him, of his prowess…"

"His power."

"Perhaps," she said, thinking. "But when he is calm, he walks with his hands in his pockets, putting the big, powerful coat behind his arms and his hips. This makes a statement, as well, I think… that _he_ comes first, maybe? That _he_ is in control? _He_ wields power, the power does not envelop him?"

"Interesting."

"Is that too weird?"

"I don't think so. It's just that, we being who we are, we would never have noticed such a thing," Protha commented.

"I reckon not, at least consciously. It's something I notice consciously as someone who…" She paused and gulped. "…loves him, desires him. The _large_ way he presents himself is effective upon just about everyone. But I see that, as well as the way he moves, because I'm tuned into him as a physical being, and, as we said, the _space_ he occupies."

"Are you even conscious of the space _around him_?"

"Not as such," she said. "But, for example, two days ago, we were in a shopping mall in America – that's on Earth. We had to split up, to triangulate a signal that would entrap this alien who was trying to spread a plague. I was in position, waiting, but then the Doctor used the comm system to tell me that the alien had changed its tack, and I was going to need to shift my post, and he was going to do the same. I happened to turn around, and saw him running down the stairs. And I could not stop watching him. Not until he got to the bottom, even though I knew that every second counted."

"Why not?"

"Because he took the steps two at a time. Both arms were running along the railings on either side of him, and his hands were fanned out. Each move he made took up as much space as possible, and was grandiose. I deliberately filed the image away…"

"I see."

"When he is problem-solving, he doesn't move with efficiency, necessarily. He stumbles, he shouts, he spins like a windmill. He uses his whole arm to point and order and sweep. He'll work with one whole leg fanned out beside him. Even his hair is styled so as to give volume to his head. When he is still, he stands with his legs apart. When he is sitting, it is with knees apart, often with a hand fixed on his thigh and his elbow crooked outward. When we were in sleeping quarters in the Palace of Kwadro a week ago, he sat on the bed and repaired my phone… knees apart, leaning on his right arm, which was stretched out as far from his body as possible, without allowing him to lie down. I watched him for several minutes, just sit there, spreading out, wanting to be the one to pull him back into himself. Sometimes, it's torture. Sometimes it's a special kind of painful bliss."

Protha did not know what to say.

Martha was sheepish when she began to speak again. "As you can see, the space he occupies within me, it's vast as well. Something of him pervades just about everything I am, at this point in my life. My whimsy and sense of humour, my instincts as a doctor… certainly my lot as a woman."

"Something of him occupies your lot as a woman."

"Of course. Everything I've just said came from… well, not the intellectual side of me."

"I understand that. Nevertheless, tell me more about that."

"My womanhood is my physicality. It is inseparable from me as a living, breathing being. And when he looks at me, I can feel it in my gut, in my bones, in my extremities. I feel a warmness all over, a vibration, a spectrum of emotion from joy to excitement to fear to doubt to ache, all at once. And sometimes, not always, but sometimes…" she hesitated. "…it all comes to roost…"

"It all comes to roost?" Protha probed when she did not continue. "All of that warmth and emotion comes to roost how?"

"How? Where?" Martha asked herself. Then, seemingly from far away, ever so lightly, she said, "Like a ton of bricks. Between my legs."

Protha let her ruminate without saying anything.

"Heavy, decadent _desire_ sucker-punches me, and moves down into other parts of me, and suddenly… I'm _so aware_ of myself and my body."

Protha was savvy enough to realise that Martha had hit upon something now, that could be helpful.

"When you become _aware of your body_ in such away, what is going on inside your head?"

"Do you mean, the fantasy bit? The part where I imagine what it would be like to…"

"Yes," Protha finished her thought, reckoning that her laboured breathing was enough to indicate what was meant.

"I can't," she nearly whimpered.

"Of course you can. You can trust me. You can trust all of us, Miss Jones."

"It's not you. I don't know if I can trust myself."

"Trust yourself to do what?"

"Not fall apart."

"Sometimes it feels good to fall apart," Protha offered. "Isn't that something that humans believe?"

"Yes, but, this…" she stopped. She sighed. She took in a deep, courageous breath, and said, with a ragged, desirous voice, "I'm already a quivering mass of skin and sweat."

"Now?"

"In my mind's eye, when my imagination goes to that place where I don't want it to… but I can't stop it. I never see how or why it happens, I only see _when_. I'm standing, fixated, not unable to move, but unable to extract myself, or abate the craving. And he approaches me with the same look in his eye that he gets when he's about to fly into battle and conquer the enemy. It's his _you are mine,_ face. It's the severity we talked about earlier… the aggressive side of him that wants to vanquish and own… only he wants to own _me_. He's going to conquer _me_. He's going to claim me. And I know that once he does, I will never be the same again."

"So, when he makes love to you, he's still a Time Lord."

"Yes. Though he still thinks before he dominates. He gets a sense of things… of the shape of things, the shape of me, and the texture of my wanting. He wants to see exactly how easy it will be to…"

"To?"

"Make me yield. Both now and later. First to him, and then to pleasure."

"And how easy is it?"

"For him? Laughably so," she told Protha with a little chuckle. "When I said that I'm a quivering mass of skin and sweat, I meant it. My thighs open to him almost as a matter of course. It's the most natural – and necessary – thing in the world for me. He's there, occupying the space that he does, and the figurative space inside of me that he does… but then there's the literal space inside of me…"

Her breathing was even more laboured now, and Protha saw this as a good thing.

She continued, "It's another one of the interesting dichotomies of men and women, Protha – I don't suppose you've ever thought about it - but, in order to be together, he needs to become hard and insistent, and she needs to become slick and pliable. And without this, it cannot work. Without this, life on Earth, and other planets, literally ceases to exist."

"Indeed."

"But there is no _without_. There is only within," she mused. "Everything about him is insistent and hard, and I feel it, want it _within_ … and _from_ within. His gaze, his clenched teeth, his coiled muscles, holding back from springing forward and just having me as he likes. And of course, the hardest bit, the thing below the waist… this is where it all lies. For him, anyway. All of it makes me conscious of the literal space inside of me that needs occupying. But then, suddenly he's there, occupying _every_ space in the universe, as far as I'm concerned, and it takes my breath away. I have hardly any air nor voice left to say his name, nor anything else, because all my oxygen is spilling over across my body, across our collective space now.

"And I'm not pliable anymore – I feel quite knotted and tense now. It's like, once he's within me, I'm no longer myself. Perhaps he's no longer himself either, because his eyes are no longer those of a conqueror, but of a man giving in. And now we're just together, and compelled toward a common goal… the texture of wanting has changed for both of us. In fact, it changes a little, every few minutes. The compulsion carries us both forward, and infuses us as one. He wraps around me, and I around him. His movement is harsh, and so is mine. We writhe and flow together. His voice becomes a low, predatory growl, coming from the deepest of places… mine mirrors it, with its feminine high. There is muscle and bone and stone and sinew and ground and we change from one thing to the next, all at the same time… then suddenly, nothing can hold its integrity. Everything is… splashing."

This final word resonated in her mind for a few moments, before she continued, breathlessly, "Solid has become liquid. Everywhere. It is displaced rather violently now, and can't hold any shape. It's exploding – or rather, we are, and going in every direction. It's loud, and gorgeous and… disordered."

"Disordered is good, is it?"

"It's bloody fantastic," she answered, practically whining. "It's what we've both been needing. Both of us have spent so much time being orderly, and wandering in the desert, some good, messy splashing is the only…"

After a long moment, Martha gave a groan, but not one that indicated desire. Her outburst was more one of pain.

"Martha these last few minutes have been excellent for the cause," Protha told her.

"But not for me," she told the Undershaman, still with pain in her voice.

* * *

Satisfied that Martha Jones and the Doctor were safely in their trance-state and weren't going anywhere, Undershamans Protha and Conshi met up with Shaman Ablengo in the sterile space, just beside the bridge beneath the giant orb.

"I don't know what's going on up there in the white chambers with the Doctor and Miss Jones, but _something_ is going right," Abglengo told the other two. "The Horticultural Arm has contacted me with good news.

"That's wonderful!" exclaimed Conshi.

"One moment please, Undershaman. There is good news, but there is also discouraging news. The good news is, the rate of growth has slowed significantly. What is discouraging is, it has not stopped. Even at the rate it's going, we can expect extinction of all animal species – that is, they will be crushed to death by vegetation – within the next week."

"Well, they initially told us one day, did they not?" Protha pointed out.

"Yes," said Ablengo. "That is something positive. But look at the orb."

The three of them looked up. Indeed, the colour of the orb had changed, as had the oscillating nature of the energies therein. There were two distinctly new signatures moving about inside the sphere, but they were not mixing with one another. Without this, there could be no balance.

"Miss Jones and the Doctor have successfully managed to distill _one another's_ masculine and feminine qualities, and the effect they have on one another has also been helpful in producing a reaction that invokes the masculinity and femininity in themselves," Ablengo said. "But, as you can see, this is not enough to provide balance, to make our vegetation return to normal."

"For that," said Conshi. "We must make the two elements fuse."

There was a moment while the three of them stared up. Then Protha said, "Shaman, you did say that their _reaction_ to one another was almost as helpful in the distillation process, as was their _descriptions_ or _interpretations_ of one another."

"Yes," said Ablengo. "Their reaction to one another has been potent. When the energies in the sphere come close to touching, there is a literal spark, and a small surge of the healing, balancing vibrations that we will need for full balance. But it's not enough."

"Indeed, I have noticed a _potent_ reaction to Miss Jones in the Doctor," Conshi offered.

"I have noticed the same in Miss Jones," Protha agreed.

Calmly, Ablengo said, "So it would be infinitely interesting to find out what would happen if we put them together, while in this state."

"Not just interesting…" Protha began.

"…but also necessary," Conshi finished.

"They will need guidance from both of us," Protha asserted.

"I can research the sort of meditative counsel they will need for such an act," Conshi offered.

"No," Ablengo told them. "If what you tell me is true, then heir own minds and bodies have been guiding and counselling them more than enough."

* * *

Undershaman Conshi urged the Doctor forward. "Take three more steps, and you will hear a loud sweeping sound, rather like the one you heard when you came up the stairs. This will put you inside the orb. From there, no-one can see nor hear you."

"Our meditations have not been enough?" the Doctor asked.

"Not quite," Conshi admitted. "But they have been a tremendous help. There is just one further step that needs to be taken."

"A deeper meditation?"

"Perhaps, if you like," said Conshi. "A cerebral, as well as physical, manifestation of all that you have told me."

"I don't understand."

"You will. Don't be alarmed – you are not in danger. Just take three steps forward, and you'll find yourself part of the orb."

The Doctor's brow furrowed slightly, but he nodded and did as asked. Indeed, he heard a loud _whoosh_ , and he found himself isolated again in a completely white space. In front of him, there was a bridge that curved subtly upward, lined on each side with a white railing. He moved forward over the bridge, at the highest point of which, there was a circular platform, about the height and circumference of a dining room table. Upon it, there was a slim pyramid perhaps three feet high, capped off by a sphere, the size of a football. From this sphere, differently-coloured bolts of energy radiated back and forth, to and from the main orb above. He looked up, and saw the vastness of the orb, the seat and centre of all power and balance for the planet below. He didn't understand what any of the churning bits of smoke and light and colour meant, but it was mesmerising.

When he looked away from the sphere above, his eye was drawn to the opposite side of the bridge, where there stood a figure who had not been there before.

"Doctor," she whispered. And she walked toward him slowly and steadily.

Clearly, like him, Martha was in some sort of mild trance-state.

He didn't respond.

Because the next thing he knew he was in the throes of something powerful, as he had never experienced before. Above, there were claps of electricity, in brilliant colours…

He was irresistibly impelled toward her, and he walked around the platform, meeting her just a few feet from it.

He wanted to kiss her. But more than that, he wanted to devour her. He wanted to be all over her. He wanted everything about her.

Suddenly, impulsively, his hands were on her, running from her shoulders, down. Firmly, he explored her soft breasts with his hands, then her rubbery, flat stomach then the place where hips became legs. He squeezed her thighs, then moved his way round to her bottom. And as he did, he pressed against her; this revealed his arousal. At this, she leaned her head back and moaned unabashedly, her voice singing with the clash of energies above, the boom, and hum. He ran his hands up her spine, and felt the perfect arch, from the very feminine small of her back, all the way up past her shoulder, to her neck and head.

Over their heads, crackling swells lighting up. Somehow, the Doctor thought he could feel it giving him fire.

He cradled her head for a moment in his large hand, and then slightly severely, he tugged at her hair. She gasped, and the Doctor planted a confident kiss just below her chin, then gave it a light lick. He then moved his exploring lips and teeth and tongue over her jaw and down her neck.

With one hand still on her back, he was still pressed to her, and had the all-over sensation of her whole body writhing. Desire had seized him quickly, was taking him over, clouding him more, penetrating his mind further than the Temple Server itself. It all manifested overhead as igniting billows, filling the space. He could feel that perhaps the same was true for her, but he had to know…

Unable to wait to find out, he grabbed her white tunic and pulled upward. She cooperatively raised her arms and allowed him to pull it off of her and toss it over the railing. She now stood naked, gorgeous, bronzed, and totally still except for her chest moving up and down with her laboured breathing. He looked her over, and let his eyes linger upon where her thighs met, and he saw them quiver. This confirmed what he'd suspected (and hoped), and he felt a familiar surge of power and greed, and the desire to seize victory. An avaricious, forceful look now crawled over his features…

And he took hold of her around the waist, and moved her quite hurriedly over to the platform, then lifted her onto it. She put her hands behind her and leaned on them, and when her breasts jutted out, he placed his hands upon them once again. He looked her in the eye while he squeezed from underneath, then slid the palms of his hands over her distended nipples. Her body was on-edge just like his; he could see and feel it now. And when she moaned, he could hear it.

Then he ran his hands possessively down over her chest and stomach again, only this time, with much more _take_ , much more hunger.

And this was when she yielded completely. Her thighs parted, and two of his fingers slid quite smoothly into her, and a veritable lightning storm began in the space above… and inside of them both. He moved them in and out slowly, watching her already distant eyes absolutely glaze over, and begin to water with strain. After a couple of minutes, he pressed his thumb against her clit and stroked it as well. Her back arched, and she gave another heady moan, and he began to see and sense her body tightening up, gaining impetus, working toward a new goal.

He stroked the hard, pink little bud with small movements of his fingers. It was amazing what such small gestures could do for her…

"So easy," he whispered, watching her pant and arch against the pleasure he gave her. "So easy."

The snapping, cracking supernovas over their heads gained intensity…

And with that, she slid into the _easiest_ orgasm of her life, pleasure bursting inside of her, then flowing to her extremities. Her body hummed loudly for about half a minute, and then it all subsided…

* * *

Martha opened her eyes, having vaguely heard perhaps popping from above, and perhaps even a deafening explosion… but she still far away from here. She was aware of him, aware of the sensations. She was aware that he had looked at her rather predatorily, touched her, squeezed her, seized her, pressed his erection against her, fingered her and watched her orgasm greedily…

… and that now she felt empty inside. Not the emotional chasm as she had sometimes felt after climaxing alone, or with someone she didn't much care for…

But the need to be filled.

The need to have him inside of her, taking up space, claiming that space again and again, and knowing that once he did, she would be a changed woman. Desired, handled, unhinged and then fucked by the Doctor… there was no way she could go back to the way things were, either inside or outside of her physical body. This was it.

And yet she was still seeing everything through a haze. All of this was somewhat artificial, she knew. She was _conscious_ , even if her unconscious was distracting her and driving all of her actions. It seemed that the Doctor was in the same state, though… he would never have touched her that way, nor done _anything_ that he had just done, had the Undershamans not put them under hypnosis and brought out the lustful side of both of them.

It was a violation of sorts, planet in peril, or no. Hypnotically coerced into sex they wouldn't normally have, by people with unfair power…

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she mused, _they should really answer for this._

But she didn't really care that much, because at this moment, she was sitting upon some sort of platform, her loins still throbbing and flowing, her legs spread. And God help her, he was climbing out of his tunic, and suddenly, her hand was wrapped around his cock.

He moaned at the sensation as the crackling and snapping began again, and he leaned forward bracing both hands against the platform as far one either side of him as they would go. He bit her shoulder as her fingers slid over his distended flesh, and back. He then pulled away, and looked her in the eye again, and she had to fight not to look away from the intensity of his gaze. She wanted it so badly – all of it – the tension, rage, the strength with which she could clearly see him straining to contain the mad eruption within.

"Stop holding back," she whispered, desperately.

And the next thing she knew he had grabbed her by the knees and pulled her forward rather roughly, and thrust inside her, burying himself deep… all in one go.

Lightning storms churned again…

Her breath left her. She wanted to moan, to say his name, beg him to take her as hard and fast as he could manage… but she had nothing. Her body and voice seemed to turn to vapour, and for several light-headed moments, she was made of only vibration and sensation.

But when he pulled back, and drove through to her centre with a hard, ragged moan, she was there, quite suddenly, in the moment again. Her physical being was present, knotted, coiled…

He pulled back and drove forward again, with another heady groan, and a hiss of her name. She heard him rasp "Martha," and knew: this was real. He was with _her_ , aware of _her_ , knew her name, and now knew all too well where she lived. He knew what she wanted. He knew what she felt like. And he already knew the sound and look and slipperiness of her when she came. In his eyes, she realised, she would never be quite just _Martha Jones_ again. She would be something else…

Again… she would be changed. Something in him would be, as well.

And with this revelation, new colours of bright blue emerged over their heads, lighting up like Las Vegas.

He held onto her knees and thrust forward a few more times, and allowed his eyes to meet hers. They morphed into a down-turned expression of worry and need, the look of a man desperate to find something, and/or hold onto something. The vindication in his eyes had faded, and now he revealed how frantic he was… just like her.

Suddenly, he growled, and once again, leaned forward, bracing his hands out to his sides, against the platform. She instinctively wrapped her legs around his waist, and her arms around his neck and shoulders, and felt everything go rigid – an impetus was found, as an objective was sought. He moaned in her ear, a low grumbling sound that she felt in her veins. She responded with a high-pitched grunt-cry each time he gave a shove forward, stabbing at her deepest place. The explosions in her mind were now indiscernible from the explosions in the orb overhead…

And they began to drive, move forward, pedal, pump, strive toward a common goal… moans, cries, hissing of words, names… orgasm rising, rising, rising… both bodies strong, thriving, thirsty…

She grasped him tighter and tighter. He gave her his all, harder and harder…

And then….

And then, any strength found, any impetus, any striving, it all suddenly became a splatter of feeling, fluids and deep groans. It all fell apart. Things went dark, and shattered, as the masculine and feminine reached their mind-numbing climax together. He flowed into her, she around him. They pulled and pushed at each other like the struts and trusses of a bridge, a harmony of structure, symbiosis and total, complete, perfectly-suspended pleasure.

* * *

 **Okay, so... wow. What are your thoughts? :-D**

 **One more chapter is on its way, sort of a cool-down, as it were, or a post-mortem. Stay tuned... meanwhile leave a review!**

 **Thank you for reading!**


	3. Chapter 3

**All righty, this is the final chapter... it's sort of the talky, shippy epilogue. The "damage" is done to the Doctor and Martha's relationship... what happens next? A bit of closure now. :-) Thank you for reading. I'd appreciate a review...**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

 **PART 3**

When the Doctor woke, he sat up instinctively, not immediately recognising his surroundings. He found himself on a soft fainting-couch sort of thing, covered with a blanket.

Although, when he moved to stand up, he realised that the blanket was actually the ceremonial white tunic he'd put on before the Temple Server's mind-probing began, and that his own clothes had been placed, folded, on a small table nearby. And so, he just _sat_ for a few moments, and examined the room.

Upon closer scrutiny, he did begin to recognise this space as the changing room, to which he and Martha had been led, in order to change into their tunics.

Though, for some reason, the space was now lit only with candles. Before, there had been bright, fluorescent-like lighting.

Before he could fully comprehend what was happening, he heard a waking sigh across the room. On a similar couch, Martha began to stir. Her eyes opened after a few blurry moments, and then focused on the ceiling. Then, she frowned, and turned her head toward him.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi," he returned.

She looked about, then asked, "Why is it so dark?"

"Not sure," he confessed.

She lifted up the tunic that was covering her like a blanket as well, and peeked underneath. "Are you wearing any clothes?" she asked him.

"No."

"Yeah… me neither. Not sure what to say about that."

They stared at each other for a few blank moments, and at last, the Doctor asked, "What the hell happened?"

She closed her eyes again. "I remember changing into this tunic," she said. "But how did I get out of it?"

"I don't know. I remember changing into it as well," he told her. "But after that, it's a blur."

"Yeah…" she mused, blinking at the ceiling.

"I remember walking out that door there, and into that antechamber underneath the orb," he reported, scratching his head, both literally and figuratively.

With a faraway voice, she said, "Now you mention it, I remember that too. And then they separated us, and I sat in this all-white space with a shaman."

The Doctor was nodding. "He asked a bunch of questions… I remember talking. A lot."

"Me too," she said. "He asked about myself, then… about you."

He squinted at her across the room. "Right. Yeah. Asked me if I…" then he stopped short.

"If you what?"

"If I'd ever, you know… though about you…"

After a long, suspended silence, Martha asked, timidly, "In the carnal sense?"

"Yeah."

"My shaman asked me the same thing about you."

"And so I talked."

"I talked too."

"And then…" he shut his eyes tightly and racked his brain. "There were…"

"…sparks," she finished, staring at the ceiling, trying to remember.

"Mm," he replied, noncommittally.

"Hissing, colliding, energy flowing. Like explosions. Over our heads? No, like… in my body. Both? Does that make any sense?" There was a pause, and then she realised. Her memory filled in the blanks, and her head snapped sideways to meet the Doctor's eye. "Oh!"

He had already got there. He lifted an eyebrow quite seriously. "Yeah. 'Oh' is right."

Again, she lifted the tunic and looked underneath. "Oh!"

"Yep. We need to have a bit of a word with our hosts," the Doctor said. He stood up, pinching the tunic together at the small of his back. He walked carefully over to the corner where his clothes were folded, fetched them with his free hand, and stepped behind the same barrier he had used when they'd first arrived, and were asked to change.

Martha herself also now gingerly stood up and crossed the room to her folded clothes. She stepped into an area on the other side of the barrier, and asked, as she began to pull her underwear on, "So you want to have a word with them?"

"Yeah," he responded. "Don't you feel a bit… well, for lack of a better word, _violated_?"

"A bit," she said, grabbing her jeans. "On principle."

He was silent for a few moments, and she could hear clothes rustling. Then, he repeated, "On principle," as though trying it on for size. After a beat, he said, "Yeah, I guess that's a good way to put it."

She clasped her bra, then pulled her shirt on. She then asked, "Are you… decent?"

"Does it really matter now?"'

"Doctor."

"I'm decent," he said, and Martha pulled back a thin screen that separated her space from his. He stood there, smirking, adjusting his tie.

"What are you going to say to them?" she asked, planting her hands on her hips.

He sighed, staring off at something just above her head. "Now you ask, I'm not sure," he confessed. "Because coercing someone into sex is one thing. A third-party coercing two others, without the third party's involvement, is another. But doing so by using this sort of shamanic hypnosis and the mind-probing of the Temple Server… that is a different kettle of fish altogether. It's problematic to try and tell them to, you know, stop it, or try to make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else."

"Problematic? Why?" she asked. "I mean, when I said, _on principle_ , that is what I meant: the coercion factor. It isn't right. Isn't that what _you_ meant?"

He smiled slightly and looked at her with a bit of quiet amusement. "Yes. But why do we both say _on principle_? Why tack a qualifier onto outrage?"

She looked away from him, annoyed, let her hands fall to her sides, and wandered back over to the fainting couch, and sat down. "I don't know what you mean," she said, lamely, looking at the floor.

"Yes, you do," he coaxed, following her across the room. He crouched on the floor in front of her, and put one hand on her knee. "Why did you say _on principle_ , a few minutes ago, when I asked if you felt violated? Just tell me – it's all right."

"Because," she said quietly, staring at his fingers pressed against her jeans. " _On principle_ it wasn't right what they did, because technically neither of us consented to any of it. But in reality… in practise…"

She found she couldn't go on, and she couldn't look at him.

"In practise, it was bloody fantastic?" he asked.

"What?" she asked, her eyes locking with his.

He smirked. "In practise, it was hardly something to complain about, wouldn't you say?"

She was stunned, and her eyes showed it. "Erm… yeah."

"In reality, it was something that we both knew was inevitable… on some level."

"We did?"

"Well, maybe I misspoke. Can't speak for you, I suppose… but me? I knew." He stood up, and began to pace the room. "I mean, I could go out there and read them the riot act, about _consent,_ and talk to them about sexual mores, of which they know nothing – obviously. I could take them to task for the violation of our bodies, our trust, no matter what the ends, et cetera, et cetera, and force them to swear, under penalty of Galactic Law, that they will never do this to anyone again, without their express permission. I could do it, and I wouldn't be wrong."

"But?"

"But the fact is, this probing-hypnosis thing they did… it doesn't manufacture, it only reveals. When they asked us questions about each other, I told the truth, didn't you?"

"Yes. I didn't have a choice."

He stopped pacing and faced her. "They didn't put ideas in our heads, they didn't give us the answers. The answers were already there. They just asked the right questions."

"Oh. Yeah. Wow, I never thought of that."

"So, when they sent us inside the orb together, after all of that _thinking_ , and _feeling_ , and _talking_ , all of that _truth_ … and we saw each other across the space… that was another kind of question they were asking, wasn't it? The question was, _what do you do next?_ _How do you make all of that truth mesh?_ And just like before, we gave an honest answer."

Martha stared at him in disbelief for a moment, before a smile spread across her lips. Though, the smile was brief. It disappeared in favour of more questions.

"Okay, Doctor," she said, earnestly. "They don't have a gender, they don't have sexuality, they don't feel what we feel. I'm thinking that temptation, fantasy, arousal, orgasm… all of that stuff would be abstract to them. Concepts to study, like the way humans study photosynthesis, or cellular mitosis."

He chuckled. "Yes, I think you're right on the mark, there."

"So, I assume they can't read the body language of attraction, if there is such a thing. Unless, maybe they have a specialist. In any case, how did they know this would work?"

"My guess? They didn't," he said. "They just had a planet out-of-balance, and needed a man and a woman. We were on-hand, and they gave it a go. _Talking_ didn't yield the results they needed… I feel like my shaman was frustrated with me because I'm not 'masculine' enough."

She shut her eyes tight, and nodded, remembering. "Now I think of it, it seems like I remember being led in the direction of feminine stereotypes, but resisting them."

"And either our descriptions of each other weren't distilled enough to manifest, or they weren't blending to bring balance, for whatever reason. Maybe we'd been too guarded with one another before. So, they put us together to see what would happen."

"Wow," she mused.

"If you think about it, it was a clever solution."

"Are you sure that all of the talking wasn't just warming us up for…?"

He chuckled. "No. I'm not sure at all."

They stared at each other across the dim space, the candle light flickering in both their eyes. Both had a half-uncomfortable, half-disbelieving smile, and both were wondering what the hell to say next, when there was a knock at the door. Martha looked to her left, the Doctor to his right – it was the door through which they had come in, not the one that led to the orb.

The Doctor moved first to open it, and Martha did likewise.

* * *

As they followed Shaman Ablengo out into the lobby area where the TARDIS was parked, the first thing they both noticed was that the building seemed to be dark, and lit with candles just as the inner room had been.

But the Doctor had a more important, burning question to ask first. "So, Shaman, don't keep us in suspense. How's the balance of the planet?"

"Better, as far as the original problem we were facing," said the Shaman, stopping to turn and face them. "Your efforts have given us an even eight-pointed star."

"And that's good?" Martha asked.

"Yes," Ablengo said, gesturing to a symbol on the wall, an asterisk that represents the four pairs of opposing forces. "This was how our graphic looked while the two of you were inside the orb together."

"And now?" asked the Doctor, grabbing Martha's hand, and looking at the Shaman with trepidation.

"Well, as you can see, the lights in the building have gone out."

"Yeah, we noticed," the Doctor said. "What of it?"

"Your… _interactions_... caused that."

The Doctor's eyebrows went up, practically into his hairline. "Pardon me?"

The Shaman smiled a bit. "In the last ten seconds before the lights went out, the masculine and feminine forces became balanced, but began to overwhelm everything else. Briefly, we thought we'd have another balance-crisis on our hands, but then... well, there was this loud _pop_ , some red sparks coming from deep inside the orb, and then the pressure became too much, and…" Ablengo gestured behind the Doctor and Martha, and upwards.

Instinctively, the travellers turned to look, and saw, in the dim light, the top of the orb was gone. What was left was a semi-sphere with jagged edges, and just the most basic of light pulsating inside the smoke that still swirled in the area.

"Whoa," Martha mused. "We did that?"

"Yes," said Shaman Ablengo.

"So what does that mean for your planet?" asked the Doctor.

"It means, they don't have a Temple Server right now," shrugged the Shaman. "This conducts the forces of nature on the planet, but things can survive for a time without it. Fortunately, when it went offline, the forces were balanced, so all we have to do is work out how to bring it back online, before the general free-will of the planet throws them off again."

"How long does that take?" Martha wondered.

"Four revolutions. Maybe five."

The Doctor translated for her, "Six months, give or take."

"And in the meantime, people will be okay?"

"They'll feel a little lost and despondent for a time," the Shaman told her. "Which is not ideal. But there are worse things."

"Okay, so what can we do to help?" asked Martha.

"We will have to physically rebuild the orb," the Shaman said. "You and the Doctor can both help with that. It's basic manual labour – requires a long process of welding. Our workers will need all the extra hands they can find."

"Fine. What else?" the Doctor asked.

"Then we will have to reprogramme it, reconnect it, bring it back live. I suspect that you, Doctor, will be quite useful to that end."

The Doctor nodded. "I'll do my best."

"And then, of course, we'll have to recalibrate the forces," the Shaman sighed. "And for that, we'll need masculine and feminine specimens…"

"But not us," the Doctor interrupted.

"We broke it," Martha reminded them all.

"Yes…" the Shaman conceded. "But… the talking exercise initially wasn't sufficient because your energies, though you were able to distill them concerning one another, weren't blending. Now, they most definitely will. Whatever resistance you'd built up to one another before, for whatever reason, is gone."

"So, you'll be able to get what you want from us, just from _talking_ ," the Doctor clarified. "You won't need us to…"

"…copulate? No."

Both Time Lord and human were uncomfortable at hearing this word. And a bit disappointed.

Ablengo turned and began to walk in the same direction they'd been going before. "Of course, the process will take quite a time, and we will need you both for a good deal of it. We would be happy to accommodate you in our official guest house. I know you have your TARDIS, Doctor, but the less interference in your minds, the better. I would like to suggest that you not commune with your TARDIS while you are here…"

"Well, seeing as how we messed up your planet, and then messed up your operating system… we'll do whatever you want," the Doctor conceded.

"Excellent," said the shaman. "I will send a communiqué to our operations officer, and ask for two rooms in the guest house."

"Well, one room ought to do it," the Doctor corrected. Then he looked at Martha, just to make sure he wasn't presuming. "Eh?"

"Erm, yeah… y-yeah, definitely," she sputtered. "Yes. I mean… yes."

Ablengo turned to face her quizzically at this strange answer she'd given, but then said, "Very well. Now, on to new business."

* * *

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